As stated in numerous posts before: It is not about the the Beta key or even the the Hybrid.

What is/was being talked and discussed was the way that Awen and the team clearly chose to ignore rules or rather change them as seen fit. Then they turned around around and blamed us for being bad sports although they were the cause of the entire mess. That is what I and many others criticised.

As stated in numerous posts before: It is not about the the Beta key or even the the Hybrid.

What is/was being talked and discussed was the way that Awen and the team clearly chose to ignore rules or rather change them as seen fit. Then they turned around around and blamed us for being bad sports although they were the cause of the entire mess. That is what I and many others criticised.

I wonder how many of you realise that posting comments claiming that Cryptic and/or it's employees are corrupt, inept and liars actually constitute as being both libelous and defamatory, and that Cryptic and/or the employees would be well within their rights to bring a legal case against said posters?

We are voicing an opionion based upon the facts as they were presented themselbves to us over the course of the last 24h. We are not accusing, nor claiming that, anyone is being this or that. But we are saying that, "looking at the entire situation and the way it was handled, we believe.....". That is simply making use of a fundamental freedom, the freedom of speech. I seriously doubt that there are any grounds for a legal case given here. I someone messes something up, I think I have the right to be mad abot it and assess(spelling?) the situation in a certain manner.

We are not seeking any legal action on our side in any way. But the right to voice an opinion is nothing that I would have think about or justify, especially not in a case like this were I am not aware of any fault.

I wonder how many of you realise that posting comments claiming that Cryptic and/or it's employees are corrupt, inept and liars actually constitute as being both libelous and defamatory, and that Cryptic and/or the employees would be well within their rights to bring a legal case against said posters?

Think about that for a second before you post.

Actually, if Cryptic DID try to bring legal action against someone for saying bad things about them, this contest would most certainly be brought up. And there is no debate that Cryptic DID break their own rules, and then blame the community for being upset that the rules were broken. If these things had not occured, and someone was badmouthing them for no reason, they might have a case. However, because of the things they actually did, any complaints against them are considered provoked grievances. Whether it was "right" or "wrong" for Cryptic to do what they did is another issue entirely.

Thank you Awen, I completely understand. I really enjoyed the winning entry and I apologize for all of this getting out of hand. It's sad that the contests are all random, though that may help my chances overall. I hope that you will still do something with screenshots etcetera that will allow us to flex our creativity a bit. Even though I didn't win I really enjoyed working on my little story a great deal. Thank you mostly for taking the time to respond to the critiques.

I hope you'll reconsider this decision. The next contest should be just like this one again.

I hope she doesn't reconsider :p

What I'm about to say is not targeted at anyone in particular. It's based on a decade's worth of internet observation, and a couple (ok, maybe more ) decades of interacting with people in real life. Of course, saying that by itself pretty much guarantees I'll get flamed, but whatevah

Awen, my word of advice to you, if you want to run another creativity contest: Do not offer a prize. Do not select a winner. Do not even select a set of candidates for the community to vote on. Do not, in any way, shape, or form, treat any one specific entry or a limited set of entries in any way that can be construed as official recognition.

I have not yet seen an internet creativity contest that ends well once a winner is picked. Somebody somewhere in the community will find some issue with the winning entry that will resonate with a vocal subset of the community. In this case, it was about word length - but if that weren't an issue, it'd be about grammar, or spelling, or post count, or similarity to some piece of previously published fiction. It wouldn't be the same set of people griping about every issue, but there will always be a set of people who will find a more-or-less legitimate reason to be upset about "how the contest was handled."

If you want to pick a winner, go with the lottery idea. If you want to get people to engage in creativity, stick with the Kobayashi Maru format.

You, as many others, are missing the point. There was no problem with the winner or is entry itself. No one whinned about the fact that they didn't win. I for one couldn't care less about any contest as I don't partake in them anyway.

However if a company blatently violates it's own rules and then blames the community for reacting a "bit sour" about it, then I find than highly disrespectful. That is essencially what the entire discussion is about.